An excellent burst of winter solar and rain-free skies accompanied Vashon’s annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC) to shut out 2023.
Birders and boaters Asta Tobiassen and Cara Borre, of Gig Harbor, joined island historian Bruce Haulman and helmsman Dennis Davidson aboard Haulman’s boat Vashona, together with The Beachcomber’s editor, to traverse Quartermaster harbor and spot birds from the ocean.
Their angle from the ocean proved fortuitous. The birders spied and recorded birds at a livid tempo for about three hours, calling out goldeneyes, buffleheads, kingfishers, surf scoters, red-breasted mergansers, cormorants and plenty of extra birds. Along the best way, they handed by a lounging harbor seal and no less than one bald eagle.
Tobiassen and Borre have birded for years, however this was the primary rely they participated in on Vashon. Spying birds from the bow of Haulman’s Vashona made for a plethora of catches, they usually had assist by way of eBird, a on-line database that helped them lookup which birds have been traditionally noticed on Vashon.
Tobiassen stated she anticipated to see extra scaup — a medium-sized duck — and Borre was shocked that they didn’t run into any mallards throughout the go to. The big numbers of wintering scoters, on trip from their breeding grounds in Canada and Alaska, had been the star of the present that Sunday.
“(Birding) takes you cool places you’d never go,” Tobiassen stated. “You meet people you’d never otherwise meet.”
Borre goes birding about thirty miles out from the coast by way of Westport Seabirds, the place she spies big, open-ocean birds like albatross.
“It’s a great hobby,” Borre stated. “You can do it anywhere. We travel all over the country and the world … (but) you can do it in your backyard, on your way into the supermarket, and you can travel all over the world for it. … It can get quite obsessive, but it’s also peaceful.”
The rely developed from a convention of hunters competitively killing birds on Christmas Day. Birders, beginning in 1900, appeared on the custom and instructed counting, moderately than killing, the birds.
That morphed into what’s now the annual Christmas Bird Count, organized by the National Audubon Society, which takes place nationally every year as native chapters schedule their occasions between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5. Vashon’s took place on New Year’s Eve this 12 months.
For the hen rely, the 15-mile Vashon “count circle” consists of the whole thing of each Vashon and Maury Islands in addition to a big chunk of the Kitsap Peninsula, most of Blake Island and a small slice of Burien. (In Vashon’s rely circle, there’s truly extra land space on the Kitsap Peninsula and in Pierce County than the whole of Vashon-Maury island space in response to Vashon CBC coordinator Ezra Parker.)
That circle is split into smaller areas, with roughly two dozen groups assigned to completely different routes to establish the categories and numbers of birds seen that day. Roughly 60 to 80 folks participated within the rely this 12 months, Parker stated.
Birders may also assist individually by counting from their yard.
Data collected on the native degree from the hen rely informs analysis on hen populations and migration patterns throughout North America, and likewise helps Vashon Audubon analyze traits right here on Vashon.
This was the ninth rely coordinated on Vashon by Parker, who stated it’s too early to attract broad conclusions from this 12 months’s CBC information, which continues to be being tabulated.
It’s arduous to tease out conclusions from the rely, Parker stated, as a result of there are such a lot of confounding elements: How lengthy was a bunch counting? How expert had been they? Was the climate good? And did they only get plain fortunate?
And even from everyday, you may see “dramatic fluctuations” in hen populations, Parker stated.
But this 12 months included the primary sighting of an American dipper in seven or eight years, and the primary sighting of a brown-headed cowbird, which hasn’t been counted on the island in no less than a decade, Parker stated. Both birds had been noticed by the identical fortunate group on the Kitsap Peninsula.
“It was probably the best Christmas Bird Count weather we’ve ever had,” stated island photographer and hen counter Jim Diers.
Diers’ group sought birds across the heart of the island between Tramp Harbor and Burton, protecting the skate park, Paradise Valley, the Burton peninsula, Sunrise Ridge and extra. From saltwater to freshwater, forests to wetlands, Diers’ group noticed greater than 50 species in sooner or later, although there have been absolutely many birds they missed, he stated.
Diers stated he usually sees a whole bunch of robins — this 12 months, he solely noticed 10. On the opposite hand, they noticed bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, a Cooper’s hawk, a red-breasted sap sucker, loons and many raptors. The Christmas Bird Count makes you are feeling like a part of a a lot bigger group, Diers stated, and helps researchers perceive the specter of local weather change towards hen species.
Diers cited Ed Swan’s “The Birds of Vashon Island” as a worthwhile useful resource for understanding avian life on the island.
At one level, whereas counting buffleheads, their group noticed a few bald eagles, which captured and ate one of many buffleheads, Diers stated — elevating a philosophical query for his or her rely.
“We weren’t sure if we should count that one or not,” he stated.
On Vashon and Maury, Diers stated the Christmas Bird Count has helped him discover extra elements of the island and see modifications in avian populations over the years — together with the decline of the long-lasting Western Grebe, which can be the emblem of the Vashon Audobon.
Bird populations worldwide are usually in decline, Parker stated, for quite a lot of causes that embody local weather change, habitat loss, overfishing and air pollution. On Vashon, some birds populations are rising whereas others are dwindling.
One well-known species in decline is the western grebe, which used to quantity within the 1000’s in Quartermaster Harbor, birders stated. A major chunk of the species in Washington used to winter at Vashon, Parker stated, however that has modified to the purpose the place they’re “almost non-existent in Quartermaster Harbor” now.
The Vashon Audobon began in 1989. The group works with the Vashon-Maury Land Trust to enhance ecological habitat, organizes a birding program with Chautauqua elementary college students, places on month-to-month hen walks and advocates for bird-friendly insurance policies within the state legislature.
The organization can be presently contemplating a reputation change, reflecting a broader development amongst birding communities to reckon with the historical past of namesake John James Audubon. Audobon was a gifted naturalist and illustrator, but additionally a fabulist and plagiarist who purchased and bought enslaved folks, stole human stays and criticized the British authorities’s emancipation of enslaved folks.
For extra details about Vashon Audubon and the hen rely, go to vashonaudubon.org or write to Parker at [email protected].
Alex Bruell photograph
Cara Borre, left, calls out hen names and counts to Asta Tobiassen, proper, who images and data the hen numbers on New Year’s Eve day in Quartermaster Harbor.
